MINI WARGAMING: B-5: Call to Arms on Tuesday with Eric & Assorted Board Games on Sunday with Patrick!
Hi Everyone,
It's been a good "gaming" week for me so far.
---
THE PAST WEEK OR SO:
First of all, when I went down to visit Andrew Walters a week or so ago, he intoroduced me to a new game called "Kahuna" and lent me his copy of it. The game has been a run-away hit, with everyone I've introduced it too absolutely loving it: Eric (my friend), Patrick (another friend), Larry (my roomate and a friend), Vincent & Quinn (my nephews), Vince (my sister's ex-boyfriend) and many others.
"Kahuna" is essentially a control game with twelve islands that have a various number of paths leading into them. Players draw cards randomly that have the names of the islands on them. Then they place roads on different islands using the cards. A person gets control of an island when he places his roads on the majority of paths leading omnto an island (2/3, 3/4, 3/5 or 4/6 paths). When this happens, any of the opposing player's roads get wiped out. The game lasts three rounds and has a simple scoring scheme (Simple enough that my young nephews grasped it almost immediately and kept begging for rematches).
"Kahuna" is a lot of fun and I plan to buy my own copy when I have the funds to do so.
---
THIS PAST SUNDAY:
I went over to visit Patrick this past Sunday, a new friend, fellow boardgamer and huge kaiju fan. We played half a dozen games or so and had a number of interesting chats.
We played (to my incomplete memory):
- Rio Grande Games "Kahuna"
- Avalon Hills "Survival"
- Rio Grande Games "Samurai"
We discussed:
- How newspapers get stories...
- The Middle East...
- Writing...
- The Russian Gulags...
- History in general...
- Game design...
- Miniature game terrain design...
I had a very good time and we both enjoyed the games.
---
YESTERDAY (TUESDAY) at Hobby Monkey:
I showed up at Hobby Monkey for the ritual Tuesday meet. Eric showed up and this not being the Warhammer fantasy Roleplay week, decided to play a game of "Babylon-5: Call to Arms." Eric is a big fan of "Babylon-5: Call to Arms" and had a friend buy him a copy of the newest edition of the rules at GenCon, which I believe are still not generally available.
Chuck, our friend, recently left to visit Turkey and then he and his wife won a journalism award to study on the East Coast. Chuck is a great guy and we both miss him greatly. He also also part of the reason I starting playing B-5 with Eric being the other. Chuck, Eric and I were playing a "raider's campaign" with Eric playing defending Centauri and Chuck and I playing an allied raiding fleet of Narn and Vree. The Allied Narn and Vree fleets cleaned the Centauri clock every game.
Yesterday, we decided to try something different:
- Eric played an ultra-modern Earth fleet with all kinds of spiffy new Earth vessels inclding the Warlock advanced cruiser, which was only seen on the "B-5: Crusades" spin-off series.
- I played a Shadow fleet.
It was a great game and was very close even if Eric was rolling hot most of the game and I was rolling long chains of useless ones and twos. The Shadows are brutal and easy to play since they don't use special orders and are extremely agile. I essentially rushed my three Shadow ships forward gutting his ships one by one starting with the smallest ships first. Eric held on and used his numbers to keep his biggest and most threatening ships always moving last and lining up their big guns (the bore-sighted weapons).
The game ended up with Eric possessing three remaining ships with all three survivors being crippled, skeleton-crewed, gutted and otherwise "pounded upon." Eric did manage to destroy all three Shadow Ships and I congratulate him for the accomplishment. The Shadow ships are tough even if they can be beat. It was a good game and a lot of fun.
It also led me to discover one of the things I like about factions with a game:
- I tend to like sides that have minimal rules and special abilities. Simple moving and shooting work for me. I prefer staright-forward tactics and don't need to "cross the T" or something to enjoy a game and feel like a good general and/or admiral.
- The Shadows are great in the they are a pretty basic "move and shoot" fleet. They don't use special orders and only have one weapon system each. This was a nice change of pace from other fleets I've tried or seen used.
On a similar note, I like the Tyranid army from E-A because they don't have to worry about blast markers, which greatly eases play.
---
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
It's been a good "gaming" week for me so far.
---
THE PAST WEEK OR SO:
First of all, when I went down to visit Andrew Walters a week or so ago, he intoroduced me to a new game called "Kahuna" and lent me his copy of it. The game has been a run-away hit, with everyone I've introduced it too absolutely loving it: Eric (my friend), Patrick (another friend), Larry (my roomate and a friend), Vincent & Quinn (my nephews), Vince (my sister's ex-boyfriend) and many others.
"Kahuna" is essentially a control game with twelve islands that have a various number of paths leading into them. Players draw cards randomly that have the names of the islands on them. Then they place roads on different islands using the cards. A person gets control of an island when he places his roads on the majority of paths leading omnto an island (2/3, 3/4, 3/5 or 4/6 paths). When this happens, any of the opposing player's roads get wiped out. The game lasts three rounds and has a simple scoring scheme (Simple enough that my young nephews grasped it almost immediately and kept begging for rematches).
"Kahuna" is a lot of fun and I plan to buy my own copy when I have the funds to do so.
---
THIS PAST SUNDAY:
I went over to visit Patrick this past Sunday, a new friend, fellow boardgamer and huge kaiju fan. We played half a dozen games or so and had a number of interesting chats.
We played (to my incomplete memory):
- Rio Grande Games "Kahuna"
- Avalon Hills "Survival"
- Rio Grande Games "Samurai"
We discussed:
- How newspapers get stories...
- The Middle East...
- Writing...
- The Russian Gulags...
- History in general...
- Game design...
- Miniature game terrain design...
I had a very good time and we both enjoyed the games.
---
YESTERDAY (TUESDAY) at Hobby Monkey:
I showed up at Hobby Monkey for the ritual Tuesday meet. Eric showed up and this not being the Warhammer fantasy Roleplay week, decided to play a game of "Babylon-5: Call to Arms." Eric is a big fan of "Babylon-5: Call to Arms" and had a friend buy him a copy of the newest edition of the rules at GenCon, which I believe are still not generally available.
Chuck, our friend, recently left to visit Turkey and then he and his wife won a journalism award to study on the East Coast. Chuck is a great guy and we both miss him greatly. He also also part of the reason I starting playing B-5 with Eric being the other. Chuck, Eric and I were playing a "raider's campaign" with Eric playing defending Centauri and Chuck and I playing an allied raiding fleet of Narn and Vree. The Allied Narn and Vree fleets cleaned the Centauri clock every game.
Yesterday, we decided to try something different:
- Eric played an ultra-modern Earth fleet with all kinds of spiffy new Earth vessels inclding the Warlock advanced cruiser, which was only seen on the "B-5: Crusades" spin-off series.
- I played a Shadow fleet.
It was a great game and was very close even if Eric was rolling hot most of the game and I was rolling long chains of useless ones and twos. The Shadows are brutal and easy to play since they don't use special orders and are extremely agile. I essentially rushed my three Shadow ships forward gutting his ships one by one starting with the smallest ships first. Eric held on and used his numbers to keep his biggest and most threatening ships always moving last and lining up their big guns (the bore-sighted weapons).
The game ended up with Eric possessing three remaining ships with all three survivors being crippled, skeleton-crewed, gutted and otherwise "pounded upon." Eric did manage to destroy all three Shadow Ships and I congratulate him for the accomplishment. The Shadow ships are tough even if they can be beat. It was a good game and a lot of fun.
It also led me to discover one of the things I like about factions with a game:
- I tend to like sides that have minimal rules and special abilities. Simple moving and shooting work for me. I prefer staright-forward tactics and don't need to "cross the T" or something to enjoy a game and feel like a good general and/or admiral.
- The Shadows are great in the they are a pretty basic "move and shoot" fleet. They don't use special orders and only have one weapon system each. This was a nice change of pace from other fleets I've tried or seen used.
On a similar note, I like the Tyranid army from E-A because they don't have to worry about blast markers, which greatly eases play.
---
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
posted by MaksimSmelchak @ 8:50 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:51 PM, September 07, 2005,
MaksimSmelchak said…
Hi,
Thanks for the positive comments.
I'll check out your site when I can.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
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